Cristina Odone is a journalist, novelist and broadcaster specialising in the relationship between society, families and faith. She is the director of communications for the Legatum institute and is a former editor of the Catholic Herald and deputy editor of the New Statesman. She is married and lives in west London with her husband, two stepsons and a daughter. Her new ebook No God Zone is now available on Kindle.

David Cameron has to learn: Polly Toynbee-style policies on the family don't work

David Cameron has been caught out. He has always been dazzled by the liberal intelligentsia – remember when he hailed Polly Toynbee as a role model for the Tories? – and actually believes that most of the core Conservative party shares the liberals' laissez faire attitude towards the family. When Polly said there was no such thing as the nuclear family he believed her. When she championed women leaving their babies to go back to work, he agreed. Now his enthusiasm for la Toynbee has come to haunt him.

The Social Justice Foundation, Iain Duncan Smith's think-tank, has just given the Coalition a very bad report card – two marks out of ten for their handling of family break-down. By embracing Polly Toynbee-style policies, the government has failed to help couples build a tight-knit, loving home in which children and (grown-ups) thrive. Their policies fail to distinguish between married couples and co-habiting ones; they penalise mothers who stay home; and they have failed to expand services that persuade couples to stay together.

Cameron knows first-hand the crucial importance of a happy family. Friends who know him and Sam Cam say he is hands-on as a Daddy, and helpful as a husband. (He often does the washing-up.) So why does he refuse to promote it? Like Nick Clegg, a happily married father of two who is against "preaching" family values, Cameron thinks shoe-horning people into a social model smacks of self-righteous priggishness. It's not cool to hold up traditionalism and in politics, as John Major's "back to basics" debacle proves, it can be dangerous.

But when a traditionalist model works, why shouldn't a government promote it? It is as if our top duo enjoy the benefits of a happy family yet are determined to keep it their own little monopoly: no sharing the fun, the love, or the moral compass. Yet Messrs Cameron and Clegg cannot hide the importance of a good family forever. Study after study, many of them rather embarrassingly, the work of a fellow member of the Coalition (ie Iain Duncan Smith, the Works and Pension Minister) have shown that being brought up within a marriage protects children from dropping out of school, addiction, and trouble with the law.

Today, at a conference entitled "The Development of the Moral Compass" ( Policy Review TV brings it to you live on the internet) educationalists, child psychologists and youth workers are trying to determine when and where children (under 16) understand right from wrong. Their starting point is a surprising report that runs counter to prevailing liberal opinion: children do not get their morals from their friends and peer groups, but their parents. Mothers are considered the number one role model when it comes to right and wrong; fathers come a close second.